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All-or-Nothing
' s' is a threat-assessment term used by the PRT to refer to capes“Birdbrain is the big threat. The muscle is second to that.” “I’m flattered,” I heard Birdbrain’s ethereal voice. “She’s halfway to being an all-or-nothing threat. Like Swansong with her blasts, but with aim.” I saw Bluestocking turn her head, asking a question. Birdbrain answered, no doubt passing on what we were saying. “You’re using that term wrong!” Bluestocking called out. “All-or-nothing isn’t right!” Bitter Pill said something, annoyed. Too far away to be heard. “If she aims she’s guaranteed a hit if her gun’s at the right point horizontally. Vertically, doesn’t matter. All-or-nothings are PRT terminology for anyone who’s strong enough that you can’t defend against their attack unless you defend against anything, can’t dodge unless you can dodge everything. She’s halfway there and that makes her a good enough shot we can’t afford to get in an engagement. Headshot every time.” - Excerpt from Blinding 11.1 with highly efficient powers. All-or-Nothings specialized in directly dealing damage can be referred as Annihilators, so there is some overlap with the old Nuker classification. Examples *Chort“Come, look up at me,” she told Chevalier. She put a hand at his chin, and Chort helped her, forcing Chevalier’s head up until it couldn’t move any further. Chort wore a wolf pelt with goat horns over head and shoulders, and despite being only sixteen, was strong on a level that surpassed even heroes like Alexandria. When he moved, he did so with care. To him, Chevalier was like eggshell. - Excerpt from Interlude 15.z II *ContessaTorrieltar: How fast can Path to Victory react to unforeseen changes? Wildbow: All changes are foreseen, as a rule. Can't cite anything, but there's a line that sorta appears in the story, where you run into the perfects (perfect defense, perfect offense) and stuff gets fucky - and the rule of thumb is that 'unless your ability beats -everything-, it doesn't beat this'. For processing power Contessa's ability would be on this level (as with Flechette's Sting, Clockblocker's inviolability, Siberian's invulnerability). - Wildbow on Reddit *EidolonPhir Sē’s portal opened beneath Behemoth’s feet, aimed upward, and a plume of light speared into the sky, consuming Behemoth, covering him. Eidolon’s power held. He’d had the situation explained, had been given time to let his power build up to full strength, and his passenger had supplied something with a durability on par with Clockblocker’s ability. Inviolable. “That’ll do,” Imp said, quiet. The light continued to flow upward, a narrow column no more than fifty feet across, billowing out only slightly as it reached the top of Eidolon’s barrier, parting smoke and clouds in a circular ring, revealing the intensely blue sky above. The entire sky seemed to brighten as the light dissipated beyond our atmosphere. Phir Sē’s light faded, and the barrier collapsed. Dust continued to fill the area, plumes of it. Behemoth lurched forward. Not quite Behemoth, but a skeleton, something like a skeleton. Emaciated, a black-red frame dripping with ichor, it had all of the key features, the basic underlying structure with the horns and the gaping mouth, the claws and the way the shoulders were broad enough to host his bulky frame, but a good eighty percent of him had been torn away, shredded. A skeleton covered in a veneer of meat. - Excerpt from Crushed 24.4 (Depending on the powers he has at a given moment) *Glaistig UaineSiberian, Damsel, Scrub, Flechette, and Grey Boy are Worm capes at the 'if anything can penetrate that defense, these guys penetrate that defense' level of attack. Eidolon and Glaistig Uaine have such attacks in their toolkits. ... Alexandria is basically a superman expy with top tier (beaten only by people in the first paragraph) durability and a super brain that's picked up martial arts. - Wildbow on Reddit (Depending on the shadows she has at a given moment) *Gray Boy *Siberian *Flechette's Cluster *Ashley Stillons *Scrub *Clockblocker *Hookline“He’s in the company of Hookline. Minor mover, has a hundred-foot long cable he telekinetically controls. It can’t be broken or damaged, short of some very select powers, and it will shake off or slip free of a lot of things that would snag or impede another weapon. Frost, hands that try to grab it. So don’t try. It moves faster and acts like a whip, so be super careful if a fight happens. There’s a hook on the end, and he’s most dangerous if you’re at or just inside that hundred foot limit of his range where the hook is flying around. Which brings me to my next point.” - Excerpt from Shade 4.5 *Birdbrain *Unnamed Fallen memberI twisted around, exerting force against the immobile obsidian statue, and she came to life, stumbling back, just as I saw the attacker behind me freeze. One attacker, with two bodies. Whatever one wasn’t active was immobile and apparently invincible. Whichever one was active had enhanced speed and the strength that came with hitting things very fast. ... The lizard-demon Fallen charged after me again, in lieu of answer. I lashed out, and she became statue. It was like hitting something Clockblocker-affected, from my hometown’s old Wards team. No result, nothing got through. - Excerpt from Pitch 6.4 *Unnamed Lord of Loss soldierFoil turned the spider-mounted crossbow around to fire, and the blaster threw something to their feet- crystal encased them, freezing them immobile within for less than a second. It was less than a second because Foil’s shot hit the crystal and both the bolt and the crystal shattered. - Excerpt from Blinding 11.7 Details All-or-nothing is not strictly linked to the general threat level of a parahuman, but denotes high quality, "hard counter" nature of the power itself. For example Clockblocker and Damsel of Distress both have very strong powers once applied, but are severely limited in that both of them have to use their own legs and wits to get to the target, which hurts their general threat levels. Contessa, on the other hand, is directly aided by her power to be in the right place in the right time, which solidly puts her into 12+ "do not expect to win" category of threat.“What’s her classification?” “Thinker. Don’t worry about the number. Just run.” - Excerpt from Drone 23.2Contessa and Glaistig Uaine were easily twelves or higher on the power-ratings scale, and I could look to others with powers in that neighborhood to figure out who she was referring to. - Excerpt from Extinction 27.4 Despite this these powers can be worked around or canceled out through various means, including: * Trump powers.The camera images that Clockblocker and company wore shifted as they scrambled away. There was a shudder as a mass landed in their midst. Hatchet Face, dropping down from a vantage point somewhere above them. Rachel’s dogs went on the offensive, attacking him, but their flesh was already sloughing off, their connection to Rachel shut off, their bodies disintegrating. Parian’s creations were already deflating. More range than the Tyrant had possessed, and the power loss was immediate. Foil shot her crossbow, but it did surprisingly little damage. Hatchet Face pulled the bolt from his shoulder with no difficulty. - Excerpt from Sting 26.5Fog approached. A wall of it, moving down the corridor. She could see normally, but the effect on her powers was absolute. It was impossible to make out any steps that moved within the fog. ... She ducked. “-have a perception blocker, ... They’ve got a thinker, I think, they planned this ahead of time, knowing I wouldn’t pick up on their presence.” ... This ‘Mantellum’ had been close enough that he should have been able to block her power. He hadn’t. Because he’d been on the other side of the portal. The power didn’t cross dimensional boundaries. - Excerpt from Interlude 29 * Oblique powers.King had a flimsy hold, Jack had a stronger hold. The former Gray Boy was closer to a Labyrinth in full-on powers mode than anything else. Using powers indiscriminately, staying within an area. King was effectively immune to him, and used this to introduce himself and start leading him around. - Wildbow on SpacebattlesFlechette moved to shoot, then reconsidered, threw a handful of darts at Trickster instead. The darts disappeared in midair, and splinters of wood and small stones dropped straight out of the air where they had been. - Excerpt from Sentinel 9.3 * Interaction with other All-or-nothing powers.gardenofjew: I'd guess yes because the following happens in the story: time-frozen objects and Siberian will cancel each out-- Siberian 'pops', the object unfreezes. We see this in the S9000 arc. A Foil! dart passes through a Siberian (and pops it) during the S9000 arc. Since Foil>Siberian and Siberian=time-frozen, Foil>time-frozen Wildbow: More or less. - Wildbow on Reddit Some tinkers, such as Armsmaster,Leviathan turned to run. Armsmaster sent out one blade like a grappling hook, circled the smaller of the Endbringer’s claws with the chain. Leviathan moved, oblivious or uncaring, and Armsmaster waited until the slack was out of the chain, pressed a button. The chain and Halberd ceased moving, and even Leviathan’s strength ceased to move it. Rather than pull away, the Endbringer skidded, fell on his back, wrist still held by the chain. ... “For the record, that last trick was a temporal stasis trigger, with thanks owed to the cooperation of a subordinate of mine. Drains my battery reserves, but you don’t understand that, do you?” Leviathan lunged, and Armsmaster fired out the grappling hook, stopped it in mid air by freezing it in time. Leviathan ran himself through on the chain, the thing spearing deep into his neck and out the back of his torso. Uncaring, the Endbringer continued to charge at Armsmaster. - Excerpt from Extermination 8.4 are able to replicate these effects. Using All-or-nothing powers is one of the very few ways to kill an EndbringerNekron-akaMrSkeletal: I guess that works. I was actually wondering about sting. If Foil had been at the behemoth fight could she have finished behemoth when his core was exposed? Wildbow: Yep. - Wildbow on Reddit8:47 PM <•Wildbow> If you have multiple effects in place and you trap the whole Endbringer, it'll count as dead. - Answer by Wildbow on IRC, archived on Spacebattlesor an “unkillable” cape like Alexandria or Gavel.What do you do with the villains who can't be killed, like Gavel? You maybe try to wrangle some giant-killers like Flechette/Foil, but how many of those guys are there, really? - Wildbow on Spacebattles History Background The only reason Humanity has a chance was because this came at the right time. Story Start Was used multiple times against the Undersiders. Their use was showcased against Leviathan.Leviathan didn’t make noise. I kept expecting a roar, or hiss, or something, but Leviathan was dead silent. I somehow imagined a victorious howl as he broke through the barrier, crouched, and lunged into the crowd. He stopped, and I thought he was using his afterimage, halting so it could rush forward, but even the watery echo stopped a second after it appeared, only the very edges of it continuing forward to crash violently against the sides of the alley. For several long heartbeats, it was nearly quiet, but for the sound of rain, people’s noises of pain, mine included, and the sound of one of Kaiser’s iron columns ripping free of the wall and falling atop a pile of blades. It took me a second to realize what had happened. Leviathan hung frozen mid-pounce, and his emerging afterimage similarly stood there, frozen in time. In the midst of the afterimage was Clockblocker, half-immersed in water. - Excerpt from Extermination 8.3 Post-Leviathan The limitations of an All-or-nothing cape was shown against members of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Post-Slaughterhouse Nine Clothsline operation was important in turning the tide against Echidna and taking down Ignis Fatuus. Post-Echidna Several powers were used to great effect against Behemoth. Post-Timeskip Siberian and Clockblocker canceled each-other out.Clockblocker fired his threads from his gauntlet. They surrounded the cube-carrier, and he froze them. Unstoppable force against an immovable object. Which won? Siberian made contact with the thread and flickered out of existence, and the thread went limp. The cube fell with a crash. - Excerpt from Sting 26.5 Gold Morning Was intrinsic in ending the event once the enemies will to fight was broken. Early-Ward One such cape settled in Hollow Point. Post-Fallen fall Post-Goddess' Takeover Bluestocking gets a clarification on the PRT usage of the term versus the general one. Post-Ice Break Several capes of this description were grouped as 'annihilators' by Antares, meaning those with the ability to seriously hurt Titans. - Excerpt from Radiation 18.5 Some though, like Gundeck, Teem and Solarstare may not actually qualify for this label. - Excerpt from Radiation 18.6 Trivia * It is an obvious point of contention in the fandom which capes actually fit in this category. Category:Terminology